


The Witch And The Lettuce Thief

by Rogue of Heart (Akumeoi)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/F, Fluff, Witch Jade Harley, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21941809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumeoi/pseuds/Rogue%20of%20Heart
Summary: A story about a witch with a crush, a silly fairytale curse, a pregnant cat, and some lettuce.
Relationships: Jade Harley/Roxy Lalonde
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	The Witch And The Lettuce Thief

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift for flowersapphics for the Homestuck Secret Santa 2019. They asked for fluffy JadeRoxy, which is a pairing I've never written before. Roxy's voice is soooo difficult and I might come back to this later to polish it up a little, because good lord does she talk fancy-complicated. I couldn't resist writing a witch AU after reading other JadeRoxy fics on AO3 for inspiration. I really hope I did the pairing justice and that this is fluffy enough to suit!
> 
> This fic includes a weird combination of witch lore from The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett, The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey, and the anime Izetta: The Last Witch. The name of the town comes from [page 2988](https://www.homestuck.com/story/2988) of Homestuck, so it's basically just LOFAF.

Once upon a time, a good witch watched over a town called God’s Forge. The young witch had inherited care of the town from a powerful old witch who had left big (red, sparkly) shoes to fill. With her familiar Becquerel at her side, the young witch set out to do her best to earn the respect of the townspeople through her dedication, hard work, and friendly demeanour. The witch’s name was Jade.

One fine spring morning, Jade donned a pair of big, red sparkly wellie boots and her black pointy hat with the widest brim, grabbed a shovel and went out into the garden. Her house was on the edge of town, and behind it stretched a garden of multiple acres, which also included an orchard and a greenhouse. This garden grew all manner of herbs and plants that Jade used in magical potions and poultices, poisons, spells, and of course, dinner.

Today she saw a problem as soon as she reached the vegetable beds: the rare, magical frostheart lettuce bed, which yesterday had contained a dozen promising-looking green leaf bundles now contained nothing but loose brown dirt. Someone – or something – had stolen Jade’s lettuce.

“Not again!” Jade yelled, throwing her spade down beside the empty bed in frustration.

It was common for the townspeople to “borrow” plants from Jade’s garden, but they always repaid the favour by giving her something in return – and they _never_ took the entire bed. This was really too much. Some idiot in town had been sampling massive quantities of Jade’s other lettuces, starting with just one or two heads of the normal romaine lettuce and moving on to half a bed of every other kind of lettuce that Jade was trying to grow. Apparently they didn’t realise that you couldn’t just go to a seed store and buy the seeds for magic lettuce. How was Jade supposed to grow a new frostheart lettuce if she didn’t even have a piece from the old one?

Jade had been letting the lettuce thief slide so far, but no more! It took a lot to make her drop her friendly and conciliatory demeanour, but she was well and truly frustrated now. Rolling up her sleeves, she stomped back into the house to trade her boots for her trademark ruby slippers, and her plain black dress for a new one more business-like and intimidating. Still fuming, she pulled out her crystal ball to quickly divine the location of the lettuce thief or thieves.

Contrary to Jade’s expectation, the image of the house that appeared in her ball wasn’t that of a teenage troublemaker or careless middle-aged chef. Instead, she saw the front door of the cottage of a new girl who had arrived in town just a few months ago. If Jade was remembering correctly (and of course she was, she made it a point of pride to know the names of all the townspeople, new arrivals or not) the girl was from the Lalonde family and her first name was Roxy.

Jade faltered – Roxy had seemed so easygoing and friendly when she had first moved in. She made Jade a little nervous because she was so mature, funny, and pretty. Jade couldn’t deny that maybe she had a bit of a crush... but she wouldn’t budge! She would get to the bottom of this lettuce thieving, no matter how cute Roxy was. 

Going to her broom closet, Jade grabbed a large rifle. Unlike other witches, Jade rode a gun instead of a broom because her grandpa had taught her to always be prepared. 

“Stay!” she called to her familiar as she swung her leg over the gun and locked the front door. “Be a good boy. Bye!”

With that, Jade lifted into the air. Angling the broom upwards and holding onto her hat with one hand, she enjoyed the sweep of wind through her hair as she lifted high over her neighbours’ rooftops. Even though she was peeved, Jade loved flying and enjoyed the ride over to the cottage on the other side of town that the crystal ball had shown her, where she knew that Roxy lived.

After a brief, enjoyable flight, Jade landed on Roxy’s front lawn. Sliding from the rifle, she slung it over her back and marched up to the front door. Despite her annoyance, she gave a polite knock. There was no reply. After waiting a few moments, Jade knocked again, this time more forcefully.

On the second floor of the little stone cottage, a hot pink curtain was yanked open. Seeing the movement out of the corner of her eye, Jade glanced up, but the person who had opened the curtain had already vanished. There was another long moment of silence, and Jade was contemplating knocking for a third time when she heard loud, hasty footfalls and the door was flung open.

Standing in the doorway was a dishevelled young woman in a pink dressing gown that had been hastily tied. Her blonde hair was mussed and the dressing gown was hanging from one spaghetti-strap-sporting shoulder. Roxy. Jade surmised that she had woken her up from sleep, even though it was 8:00 in the morning.

 _Of course Roxy would be tired if she was up all night stealing my lettuce!_ Jade thought to herself. This sleepy, flustered look made Roxy soft, but Jade was ignoring it as best she could, not letting herself soften to it in return.

“Wha?” Roxy said sleepily, rubbing her eyes with her overlong sleeve. “’Sgoin’ on?”

Jade sighed, realising that Roxy didn’t recognise her. As the town witch she was supposed to get some respect and acknowledgement, dammit.

“I’m Jade Harley, Ye Witch of the Space that be God’s Forge,” Jade said, introducing herself with her official title, which was ancient and venerable. “The town witch? It’s okay if you didn’t recognise me. I know you’re new here. I need to talk to you, please.”

Roxy’s eyes widened. Then she noticed the rifle strapped to Jade’s back. “Am I in trouble or something?”

Jade was really trying hard to be polite, but she was just so annoyed.

“I’d like to talk to you about some lettuce,” she said, her sweet smile failing to mask the sharp tone she accidentally let slip into her voice.

Roxy swallowed. “Oh...” She gave a sheepish half shrug and a toss of her tousled blonde waves, which Jade caved to and found cute despite herself. Still, she didn’t waver from her purpose as Roxy stepped back from the door and allowed Jade to come inside.

“What’s with the rifle?” Roxy joked nervously as she ushered Jade into the parlour. 

“I ride on it. It’s my broom,” Jade explained as she looked around the room. There was a lot of pink. Some of it was tasteful – a nice pink and cream armchair, for instance. Some of it was not – like the hot pink tasselled curtains. Heaven only knew where she had gotten _those_ from. Several books were stacked on their sides on the mantelpiece, rather than aligned in a row. There was a cat tree in the far corner, but no sign of an actual cat. Jade also noted that there was a framed picture of a wizard on the wall, and wondered if it was a fictional wizard or maybe a relative.

Roxy moved to stand by the fireplace and cat tree, and Jade similarly made no attempt to sit down.

“So about your lettuce,” Roxy started, “I’m _really_ sorry but I hella needed it. Lives were at stake!”

“Whose lives? Why didn’t you just buy lettuce at the farmer’s market?” Jade said, exasperated.

Taking a deep breath, Roxy bit her lip. “You’re not gonna believe me,” she warned Jade.

“Go on,” Jade said, narrowing her eyes. As the town witch she’d heard plenty of wild stories before, but rarely were any of them true.

“My beloved darling cat is pregnant, and she’s been _cursed_ ,” Roxy said dramatically. Jade’s eyebrows shot upwards. “I’m so worried about her!” Roxy continued, “She has all these cravings for salad, which is hella unnatural because she’s a cat – ugh, I didn’t know what to do, like what if it was bad for the kittens? I gave her some lettuce but it just kept getting worse. I figured maybe some frosty magical lettuce would cure her.”

“Your cat is cursed to eat lettuce?” Jade pressed.

“Yea, the witch of my other town didn’t like me, and her familiar was this godcat and it cursed my cat on the day that she got preggers. Hells a coloured green and gold light. I swear, I saw it with my own eyes.”

Jade started. She gave a snort. And then, she was bursting into full on gales of laughter as she understood what had happened.

“Your – your cat,” she managed to get out between heaving sobs of laughter, “your cat’s name is Rapunzel?”

“Wha? No, her name’s Vodka Mutini,” said Roxy. “Why are you laughing? I’m serious!”

Pulling herself together, Jade wiped her eyes. “I believe you,” she said. “I shouldn’t laugh, I’m sorry! It’s just so funny because I’ve never heard of a cat that’s been cursed like this before.” She didn’t doubt that Bec could curse someone’s cat if he wanted to, but he was too well trained and well behaved for that. “Your cat has been cursed with a Tower Maiden curse. She is supposed to get a craving that makes you steal lettuce from a witch’s garden. Then when the children are born, the firstborn is taken by the witch to be raised in a tower. That’s the story of Rapunzel.”

Roxy’s face cracked into a smile. “You mean to tell me the kittens are all gonna have epically long hair?”

“Or maybe tails,” Jade giggled, imagining. “Or maybe ears? I don’t really know. I’ve never seen this in a cat before.”

“Does this mean I have to give you one of the kittens?” Roxy asked.

“What you _should_ do,” Jade said, giving Roxy a glare that held no real heat, “is take me to your cat so I can take the curse off of her, which is what you should’ve done to begin with.”

“You can just – take it off?” Roxy said, looking startled.

“Of course,” Jade said. “That’s my job!”

“Aw man, if only I knew that earlier,” Roxy said. Standing straighter, she fixed her dressing gown and started finger-combing her still-messy hair. “Come on, I’ll take you to Mutini.”

After that, Roxy led Jade through the house to an upstairs bedroom where a plump black cat with four eyes sat ensconced in a basked full of soft towels, like a little nest. It was the matter of a few minutes’ work to remove the curse from the cat.

“There!” Jade said, as Mutini rubbed her head against Jade’s hand. “All better.”

“Thank youuuuuu,” Roxy said, giving her cat’s ears a scratch. Mutini started purring.

“No problem,” Jade said. “Just come to me for help next time, okay?” Roxy nodded. “Also,” Jade continued, “I know you’re new here, so it’s okay if you don’t know the rules yet. But in this town, when people take things from my garden, they have to pay me back by giving me something in return.”

“What kind of thing?” Roxy asked, considering.

“Anything you have that you consider of equal value that I might find useful,” Jade explained.

“I’ll think about it,” Roxy said, wiggling her eyebrows, prompting Jade to give a goofy little smile. “You’re real cute, Jadey. I think we’re destined to be friends!”

 _Jadey?_ Jade thought. No one had ever called her that before. And although she normally liked the villagers to have a healthy respect for her, she found she didn’t mind Roxy’s particular brand of loving irreverence. She was quite taken with it, actually...

“I hope so,” Jade said earnestly.

Roxy waggled her eyebrows again. “So, no problem is too small for the witch of the God’s Forest Space or whatever it was, huh?”

“Nope! Do you have another problem you need help with?”

Heaving a dramatic sigh and leaning closer conspiratorially, Roxy said, “I bin cursed, doc.” Jade gave Roxy a quick once-over, but couldn’t glean what she was talking about from a glance. “It’s my lips,” Roxy continued, and Jade blushed as her eyes were automatically drawn to Roxy’s pink lips. “They ain’t been kissed for six months. I’m worried it’s incurable dark magyks. Is this problem important enough for you to fix?”

Jade snorted, struggling to hold back a burst of laughter. Roxy was grinning like a cat that had got the... lettuce.

“I guess I could look into the problem... if you bring me an appropriate item in return.”

“Well... I have _one_ thing I wanna give you,” Roxy said flirtatiously. Taking Jade’s hand, Roxy kissed the back of it like a knight kissing the hand of a fair lady, and Jade blushed as Roxy winked at her and let go of her hand. “Is that payment enough?”

“Well,” Jade giggled shyly, “A box of chocolates or some flowers might be nice.”

Roxy clenched her fist. “If it’s gonna cure my curse, I’ll do it!”

It was thus that the witch of God’s Forge and the newly arrived rogue Lalonde became friends. Roxy paid Jade back for the lettuces she had taken, then made good on her resolution to bring Jade both flowers _and_ chocolates. Jade was only too happy to cure Roxy’s “curse” and kiss her. Jade, Roxy, Jade’s dog, and Roxy’s many cats soon moved in together and they all enjoyed each other’s company very much. So they all lived happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you like this story? Tell me how I did! Comments always welcome :)


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